-----Original Message----- From: baden-wurttemberg-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:baden-wurttemberg-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Cindy Cunningham Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 2:08 AM Subject: [BW] Bower/Bauer surname Wurttemberg? I'm trying to confirm that I am on the correct track with my husband's relatives. On census records 1860 on they are listed as Bower, but the ship's passenger list (Brig Herschel) out of Bremen, Germany lists them all as Bauer arriving in Galveston, Texas 1/24/1850. Did they Americanize the name themselves? On various census reports, Westenberg, Badin and Germany are listed as well as something that appears to be Domstat. Most trees I've found for Bower, not mine, list Badin-Wurttemberg and I've seen on the map that there is a Dornstadt on the eastern border. Can I confirm that I'm on the right track? I noticed that the northern Wurttemberg immigrants seemed to depart from La Havre, France. Which would be more normal a France or Bremen in northern Germany? I have absolutely no experience tracing into a foreign country. My relatives were here much earlier on. Cindy Cunningham ============================================================================ Dear Cindy & Baden-Wuerttemberg List Friends, It appears from Cindy's notes above that a few spelling/name rendering errors may need adjustment---always a good idea to help keep research on the right track. :-) By the way, United States census documents from just about any era are notorious for spelling errors in names of all kinds, not to mention flat-out errors or misunderstandings in recording information on the part of the census taker, and sometimes deliberate misinformation (or evasion, or confusion, or a language barrier) on the part of the people being interviewed for the census. It's wise to bear that in mind as you look at census record information. :-) Just off the top of my head, I believe the following adjustments to Cindy's information are in order: (1) Badin = likely a simple misspelling of BADEN. The German name Baden is always spelled B-A-D-E-N (and means "baths" in German, relating to the numerous natural mineral springs found all over Baden territory.) It is likely that the census taker just misspelled it. (2) Domstat = *could* be the city of DARMSTADT, which is located outside of Baden-Wuerttemberg in the German state of Hesse. Hesse is located to the north of Baden (western central Germany.) (3) Westenberg = offhand, there is at least one city in Germany called Westenberg, which is located in the state of Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), which is not part of Baden, Wuerttemberg or Baden-Wuerttemberg, and is quite a distance away from it in northwestern Germany (whereas Baden and Wuerttemberg are and always have been in southwestern Germany.) Westenberg on your document *might* also be a misrendering of the name Wuerttemberg, which is sometimes seen in archaic spellings such as Wirttemberg, Wuertenberg, and a number of other variations. (4) The name BOWER (English language spelling) and the German name BAUER are *pronounced* the same, although the technical *meanings* of those two words in respectively English and German are quite different. [As another list member has already correctly pointed out, in German, the word and name BAUER means "farmer"; the English word/name BOWER means "a leafy shelter; an arbor; a rustic dwelling or cottage."] It should be emphasized that BAUER is an extremely COMMON Germanic surname, one found all over not only Baden-Wuerttemberg, but in virtually every German state and also in other German-speaking areas, so correctly pinpointing your specific BAUER ancestors at their point of origin will have its share of challenges---but then, challenges of this kind are typical to most German family origin research (most of us are in the same boat.) As to whether your ancestors changed their original name themselves, it is quite common to find German and other European names "reinvented" in an English version which made things easier for Americans and other English-speakers to pronounce once emigrants settled outside of their places of origin. This might have been accomplished by the emigrants themselves, or by someone else (employers who found European language names too difficult to pronounce, for example) Some emigrants changed their own names in a desire to assimilate in the new country and "fit in." (For example, my Polish-born BARANOWSKI great-grandparents became my BROWN great-grandparents in the course of a family wedding in 1925, and the male descendants remain BROWN to this day.) Most people DID NOT formally and officially seek to have their surnames changed by a court (which many people could not afford, anyway). In earlier eras in the United States, it was fairly common for someone simply to adopt a new name (first, last and/or middle) and begin using it consistently. Eventually, the person became officially identified by that new name, and it might have also passed on to his or her descendants thereafter. Hope these bits of information prove helpful in some way. Warmest wishes, Carla HELLER, Los Angeles, California USA mscarlah@earthlink.net List Co-Administrator, RootsWeb's Baden-Wuerttemberg Mailing List